The present invention relates to a pressure-proof wall or wall structure being part of a fuselage in an aircraft, the interior of which is pressurized relative to the environment and/or different parts of the interior, and more particularly, the invention relates to a tail end portion of a fuselage, particularly at and near a rear wall of the passenger compartment in a regular commercial aircraft.
Commercial aircraft or the like, usually require to maintain a pressure in the interior of the passenger compartment that is as near normal pressure as possible. This means that the structure of the aircraft experiences a significant excess pressure as compared with the environment, but a pressure differential exists also between different portions of the aircraft; there are compartments which do not require to be pressurized or require lower pressurization. In order to maintain this excess pressure in the passenger compartment, the fuselage has to be constructed accordingly, and those parts of that passenger compartment which do not require passenger compartment pressure, have to be separated from that compartment through appropriate, internal pressure-proof walls.
It is, therefore, customary in passenger-type commercial aircrafts, to block off the tail end of the passenger compartment from the true tail end of the aircraft through a particular internal pressure proof wall. This type of wall has to take up during flight a rather high load; even though the pressure differential is not that great and amounts to only about half a bar, the large area involved means that the total load on that wall is significant. This is, of course, particularly true in so-called wide body planes. Here then the forces that may arise are quite significant. These forces have to be reacted into the fuselage structure of the craft and should be distributed as widely as possible. On the other hand, in case of some damage, such as a leak or the like, the sudden escape of air from the passenger compartment can have a very detrimental effect on the safety of the craft, as some very sad recent experiences have proven.